Disclaimer & Legal Stuff: SAKURA TAISEN/WARS, MARIA TACHIBANA, and all related characters, names and indicia are TM & © 2004 SEGA RED. Chapter title courtesy of Phil Collins' "I Can Feel It Coming In The Air Tonight"

Rating: PG-13, Language, Violence

"FROM THE ASHES" – Why You Keep Your Silence Up

"Come in," he yells through his door to me, and I do.

Joseph's apartment isn't above the Luna. Only two of Ignazio's direct employs live up there. Joseph lives uptown a ways, near Central Park. Nice digs he has, too. When you're the only heir to the second most powerful and influential mob family in New York City, you only have one problem: the heir to the first most powerful and influential mob family.

I duck my hat off my head into my hand, combining the gesture of a head bow and taking the hat off. I hang it and my trenchcoat on the free standing oak hat rack near the door. Joseph is sitting in his living room on a leather sofa lined all around with brass upholstry tacks. His ankle is crossed over his knee, and an newspaper is open in his lap. He has a cigar and a glass of brandy in the same hand. It's after noon, so it seems that is acceptable. The only thing unacceptable about it to me is the fact that it's not whiskey.

"Find anything?" I ask him, jutting my chin at his newspaper.

"Not a word. Three days after the fact, and they don't even mention anyone missing, let alone dead." Joseph gestured with his vice-laden hand at the chair beside the sofa. "Siddown."

I do. I lean back and mimick his crossed-leg position, lacing my fingers together over my stomach. The key is to always look relaxed when in the presence of a wolf more alpha than you are. Relaxed, and non-threatening.

"What did you find out, anything?"

"Yeah, a little. Mosta them didn't see nothin'." That is to her credit, again. There shouldn't be witnesses.

"Can I get you a drink?"

I wave him off. Not this early. Not in this conversation.

"Then will you detail to me how the Kazuar killed Carlo Bianni?"

Yeah, sure. Because that's easy. The stories I got from three different 'witnesses' were so convoluted I could hardly make sense of them. And two of the witnesses were homeless immigrants who spoke little, if any, English. And the third was a scared kid, Bianni's messenger. "Well, there's three version of the story, ya see. An' none of the sources are exactly whatcha call reliable."

"Any information is better than none."

"Yeah, true enough. Okay, firs' guy is some bum muttering in half English an' half Italian, an' he was scared. Said he'd seen the legendary firebird, consuming the earth in flame, purifying it. It was like he was some religious nut."

Joseph Ignazio chuckles. "Wonderful. Instead of subtlty, we get vigilante legends."

"I don' think we gotta worry about that guy spreading stuff around. Second lady's not much better. Sellin' flowers an' saw what she says was an angel of vengeance. It wasn't no sniper shot the Kazuar got on him. It was a fight."

Joseph's eyebrows lift. "She fought him? She battled him and killed him?" He gives a laugh of surprise, clearly impressed. "And here I thought she shot him from the roof of a neighbouring building."

"Naw, and here's the most amazing part, she didn't shoot him at all."

Now he's choking on his brandy, and hell, I don't blame him. He repeats my statement as a question, so I repeat it again as a statement, nodding my head.

"Impossible! A little girl against Carlo Bianni, unarmed? Where is the body?"

"I dunno. Nobody knows. He ain't turned up, an' the Kazuar ain' talkin'."

Joseph nods and purses his lips in approval. "No, she wouldn't, would she? So how did she kill him if she didn't shoot him?"

"It was down by Battery Park. This account's from Michael, Bianni's messenger kid. Bianni and the kid were down there when the Kazuar showed up. She talked to him, Joseph. For the love a God, she talked to Bianni. Kid said she seemed like she was trying to save everyone involved, askin' for his books. He refused, and she decided to just go. But Bianni now knew he'd been figured out, an' he sure as hell wasn't gonna let this chick go back to your uncle with the information. So he goes for his gun as she turns to leave."

I sit forward in my seat. It's like recounting a boxing match to Joseph, and Joseph is leaning forward too, listening raptly to my story. Thank God for the Irish gift of storytelling. "Jus' as he's pullin' out his gun, she spins around an' kicks the gun over into the water. So he gets a handful of her hair, right? An' she ain't got her gun out. He's got her, he thinks. Spins her around with her back to him, one fist in her hair an' the other arm around her throat, he can jus' break her neck, or cut her throat, or throw her over into the water. Looks like he's gonna do the last one, 'cause he drags her toward the rails. An' she braces a foot against a cement pylon and shoves backward, crushing Bianni against the steel rails. It hurts enough for him to let go of her, an' she spins around again, taking her gun out. It ain't loaded, though. So she cold cocks him over the head wit' it."

"All this time, the kid's jus' standin' there doin' his best not ta wet himself. An' the Kazuar's got him back against the railing, her fists in his collar. He wants to throw her over, and she wants to throw him over – but he's a hell of a lot bigger than she is. Then CRACK! He smashes his head into hers and she goes limp like a corpse. He's got her by the arms, but she's tall, he can't just toss her over. So he steps up and straddles the railing, right? Because he's gonna pull her up and throw her over into the bay. Only the Kazuar's not unconscious, she's playing possum. Yeah, the blow hurt, but it didn't kill her. An' he gets over the railing and leans back to haul her weight up. That's when she comes all alert-like, all of a sudden, and stands up, gives him a solid shove. She's still on the land side of the railing, and all you hear of Bianni is a yell and a splash."

"She threw him into the harbour? But what about the kid? And then how did she get his ring?"

"I'm gettin' there…" Joseph is rapt. He's on the edge of his seat, too. "The kid yells, too, and the Kazuar whips her gun around and aims it at him. He says, all cocky-like, 'That ain't loaded,' an' the Kazuar's like, 'You'd bet your life on that?'" I do my best Russian dialect on that line, changing my facial expression to match her icy, unruffled one, glaring at Joseph as if he were the kid. "So the kid bolts as the Kazuar runs to the jetties." I shrug. "That's all the kid knows. Probably she got his body from the rocks below an' that's where she got the ring. Because that area's been searched, me an' Cav made sure o' that. An' there ain't nothin' down there."

Joseph leans back again, the leather of his sofa creaking. The gears in his brain are working, I can see them. He's got ideas and plans. And if I play my cards exactly right, he'll let me know what they are. And perhaps let me in on a cut of whatever profit they might turn out.